start with Ubuntu. I suggest also trying the various Fedora realeses, I use Fedora 7 for all my school work and its pretty simple, setting up dual head was a bit of a pain though.
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Laptop/------------/Desktop
/------------------/Gigabyte X38-DS4
1.8ghz/------------/E8400 3.0ghz
7900GS go/--------/8800GTS 512mb
2gb RAM/----------/2gb DDR2 800 CL4
DVD +RW/---------/DVD +RW
160gb x2 in RAID0/-/320gb hdd
17" 1440x900/-----/19" Samsung 906BW
/-----------------/550w Active PFC psu
/-----------------/AC Freezer Pro 7
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